THE  AYER  IDEA 
IN  ADVERTISING 


y  -f 


THE 

AYER  IDEA 

IN  ADVERTISING 


Tuhlished     hy 
N.W.AYER  (sP  SON 

PHILADELPHIA 

ISTE-W  YORK-BOSTON 
CHICAGO -CLEVELAND 


Copyrighted  1912 

N.  W.  AVER  &   SON 
Philadelphia,  Pa. 


^  Siol3d 
FOREWORD 

S  WE  write  there  are  two 
hundred  and  thirty-five  ad- 
vertising agencies  in  the 
United  States.  Ere  these 
words  are  done  into  type 
there  will  probably  be  more — or  less. 
Every  year  sees  many  starters — a  few  suc- 
ceed; some  hang  on;  most  fail.  Forty- 
three  of  these  changing,  shifting  years 
have  slipped  past  since  N.  W.  Ayer  &  Son 
made  its  beginning.  For  at  least  a  quar- 
ter of  a  century  no  person  well-informed 
about  advertising  has  seriously  disputed 
the  right  of  this  house  to  the  title  of 
leadership  in  the  advertising  business. 

We  claim  the  distinction  of  serving 
the  largest  number  of  advertisers  and  a 
number  of  the  largest  advertisers.  We  have 
more  small  accounts,  more  medium-sized 
accounts  and  more  large  accounts  than 
any  other  agency  —  we  cover  more  kinds 
of  legitimate  commercial  enterprise  and 
have  broader  relations  with  a  greater 
variety  of  publications  and  other  forms  of 
advertising  media  than  any  other  concern 
engaged  in  similar  work. 


8  THE  AYER  IDEA 

All  this  is  not  the  result  of  luck.  It 
does  not  just  "happen'*  to  be  so. 

The  thought  that  many  present  and 
prospective  advertisers  will  be  interested 
in  knowing  the  policies  and  methods 
which  have  given  the  Ayer  agency  the 
unquestioned  position  of  Advertising 
Headquarters  prompts  the  production  of 
this  modest  volume. 


TO  NON 'BELIEVERS 


HERE  are  men  who  do 
not  believe  in  advertising 
— good  men  and  wise,  but 
that  signifies  naught.  It 
is  but  a  brief  while  since 

-^ many  men  believed  that 

the  earth  was  flat,  but  it  was  round  all 
the  time.  The  earth  did  not  change  its 
shape;  men  merely  altered  their  views. 
The  point  of  it  all  is  that  there  are  estab- 
lished facts  in  business  just  as  there  are 
established  facts  in  nature  and  belief  or 
disbehef  does  not  change  the  facts. 

Suppose,  for  instance,  you  were  to  say 
"I  do  not  beheve  in  darkness;  I  do  not 
want  darkness. '*  Will  it  not  grow  dark 
tonight  quite  the  same  as  though  you  were 
heartily  in  favor  of  it? 

You  may  not  like  the  telephone  or 
typewriter  or  adding  machine — thousands 
of  persons  do  not — but  these  are  estab- 


10  THE  AYER  IDEA 

lished  instruments  in  today's  activities  and 
your  feelings  will  not  alter  the  facts.  To 
refuse  to  use  them  stamps  you  as  being 
behind  the  times,  and  competition  with 
the  man  or  business  which  does  use  them 
is  no  longer  possible  for  the  man  or  busi- 
ness which  does  not  use  them. 

The  time  has  passed  for  giving  serious 
attention  to  the  man  who  does  not  believe 
in  advertising.  Advertising  is  as  much  a 
part  of  today's  life  as  electricity,  antiseptic 
surgery  or  trolley  traction. 

The  system  under  which  he  who  has 
something  to  sell  tells  about  it  to  those 
who  do  or  should  use  it,  is  a  proven,  es- 
tablished, actual  fact  and  no  single  fact 
has  ever  yet  been  whipped  by  an  army  of 
opinions. 

Broadly  speaking,  it  is  easier  and  more 
profitable  to  obey  the  Law  than  to  try  to 
break  it.  If  it  is  a  good  Law  it  cannot 
be  resisted.  Tackle  the  Law  of  Gravity, 
for  instance,  and  see  how  far  you  get  with 
your  opposition. 

The  Law  of  Demand  is  just  as  sane, 
just  as  certain  and  just  as  natural  as  the 


IN  ADVERTISING  II 

Law  of  Gravity.  Both  work  day  and 
night,  weekdays,  holidays  and  Sundays 
and  they  always  pull  downward. 

Down  at  the  bottom  of  all  commer- 
cial success  there  is  Demand  insistently 
tugging  away.  If  Demand  can  be  cir- 
cumscribed and  focused  and  tied  to  your 
product,  you  have  done  a  big  thing  and 
middlemen  by  the  score  can  no  more 
stand  against  it  than  can  a  few  layers  of 
fleecy  cloud  keep  Gravity  from  accom- 
plishing its  effective  work. 

This  is  no  preachment  against  the 
powerful  importance  of  the  wholesale  or 
retail  merchant.  The  manufacturer  who 
neglects  the  dealer  in  any  advertising  cam- 
paign he  may  inaugurate  is  indeed  lacking 
in  foresight. 

"Forcing  the  trade''  to  carry  a  line 
has  long  since  given  way  to  better  meth- 
ods. Co-operation  is  better  than  coercion. 
But  as  a  foundation  for  success  nothing 
can  take  the  place  of  a  powerful  con- 
sumers' demand. 

No  one  can  want  anything  until  he 
knows  of  its  existence  and  its  fitness  for 


12  THE  AYER  IDEA 

filling  his  requirements.  Advertising  is  a 
way  by  which  people  are  told  why  they 
should  have  your  goods  and,  at  the  same 
time,  taught  how  they  may  identify  them. 

The  method  is  backed  by  good  logic 
and  good  sense — just  the  same  sort  of 
plain,  prosaic  business  reasoning  which  is 
required  in  any  other  line  of  work. 

There  is  nothing  magical  or  myste- 
rious about  it  and  the  greatest  advertising 
successes  have  been  singularly  free  from 
the  frills  and  furbelows  with  which  some 
advertising  men  seek  to  invest  this  plain- 
est and  simplest  aid  to  present  day  mer- 
chandise distribution. 


THE  ADVERTISING 
AGENCY 

HE  fact  that  an  extremely 
large  percentage  of  all  gen- 
eral and  national  advertising 
(as  differentiated  from  retail 
and  local  advertising)  is 
handled  by  advertising  agencies  would 
seem  to  provide  ample  proof  of  the  value 
of  the  agency  system,  but  further  proof  is 
at  hand.  The  rightly  conducted  adverti- 
sing agency  is  a  high  development  of  the 
idea  of  master  and  servant  or  principal  and 
agent,  worked  out  along  advanced  lines. 

A  good  advertising  agency  furnishes  a 
truly  wonderful  exemplification  of  the 
thought  that  in  dealing  with  many  special 
interests  an  intelligent  and  honest  general 
interest  can  make  itself  worth  its  cost. 

A  good  doctor  represents  a  general 
interest.  When  a  man  is  ill  there  are 
many  kinds  of  medication  in  which  he 
might  indulge,  but  a  competent  physician 


14  THE  AYER  IDEA 

knows  and  understands  all  of  these  various 
remedies  and  after  considering  the  condi- 
tion of  his  patient  prescribes  the  treatment 
best  suited  to  the  case. 

When  a  man  becomes  involved  in  legal 
difficulties  there  may  be  many  lines  of 
evidence  along  which  he  can  develop  his 
case,  but  a  good  lawyer  justifies  his  exist- 
ence by  considering  all  of  these  ways  and 
means  and  then  advising  his  client  which 
to  adopt. 

When  a  man  considers  advertising  he 
will  find  many  excellent  mediums  await- 
ing his  use  and  the  special  interests  of 
each  are  promoted  by  a  corps  of  able  sales- 
men ready  with  proof  that  its  particular 
method  and  plan  is  the  one  best  suited  to 
the  prospective  advertiser's  needs.  Right 
here  a  good  advertising  agency  justifies  its 
existence  by  its  knowledge  of  all  the  spe- 
cial claims  made  and  its  capacity  to  advise 
its  client  what  to  do  and  what  not  to  do. 

There  are  few  representatives  of  indi- 
vidual publications  who  are  in  a  position 
to  make  intelligent  comparisons  between 
their  own  and  other  publications. 


IN  ADVERTISING  15 

Business  is  not  a  sanitarium  and  no 
one  is  in  business  for  his  health.  The 
advertising  agent  is  no  more  free  from 
this  business  bias  than  is  the  representa- 
tive of  an  individual  publication,  but  the 
publisher's  representative  makes  his  bread 
and  butter  by  securing  advertising  for  his 
paper  while  the  advertising  agent  makes 
his  by  developing  an  advertiser,  and  this 
is  best  accomplished  by  placing  the  busi- 
ness in  the  publication  that  will  best  pay 
the  advertiser. 

The  relation  of  the  modern  adverti- 
sing agency  to  its  clients  is  widely  different 
from  what  it  was  in  the  beginning.  The 
attitude  has  been  altered  by  a  process  of 
improvement  to  meet  changing  condi- 
tions. 

There  was  a  time  when  the  adverti- 
sing agent  was  the  special  agent  of  the 
publisher,  and  he  very  naturally  placed 
business  with  the  publications  which  gave 
him  the  highest  reward  in  the  form  of  a 
commission.  But  from  the  beginning  of 
its  business,  this  house  has  advocated  a 
principle   diametrically   opposed    to    that 


16  THE  AYER  IDEA 

practice,  and  today  it  is  quite  generally- 
recognized  that  the  advertising  agent  who 
most  helpfully  serves  the  advertiser,  ad- 
vising him  how  to  proceed,  securing  for 
his  use  the  most  effective  space,  assuring 
him  of  absolutely  lowest  prices  and  charg- 
ing him  a  commission  for  the  service 
rendered,  is  the  one  who  deserves,  and  is 
accorded,  greatest  consideration  by  repu- 
table publishers. 

At  one  time  a  Count  was  a  man  in 
charge  of  a  count  of  five  hundred  per- 
sons, to  whom  he  was  a  sort  of  over-lord. 
This  is  not  true  today  because  of  altered 
political  conditions.  We  still  have  Counts, 
but  the  Count  business  has  changed  some- 
what. 

A  carpenter  today  is  a  man  who  works 
in  wood.  Twenty  centuries  ago  there  were 
carpenters  in  the  Holy  Land,  but  most  of 
the  houses  there  are  of  stone.  At  that 
time  carpentry  evidently  embraced  the 
work  of  a  stone  mason.  The  word  ** car- 
penter" means  something  different  today. 
It  is  all  the  result  of  changed  social  and 
labor  conditions. 


IN  ADVERTISING  17 

A  few  centuries  ago  the  word  "idiot** 
meant  a  member  of  the  Roman  citizenry. 
Citizens  in  general  would  resent  the  de- 
scription that  the  word  conveys  today. 
We  still  have  idiots — it  is  a  very  handy 
word  to  have  in  one's  vocabulary  —  but 
its  application  is  entirely  different  from 
the  olden  days. 

We  want  to  make  it  very  plain  to  you 
that  the  idea — the  business — once  de- 
scribed by  the  words  "advertising  agency" 
has  undergone  a  complete  change. 

We  like  to  think  of  our  business  as  a 
sort  of  Association  of  National  Advertisers 
who  have  entrusted  their  interests  to  our 
care.  We  are  agents.  Where  there  is 
an  agent  there  must  be  a  principal.  If 
there  is  any  advantage  secured  by  an 
honest  agent,  that  advantage  will  in  turn 
be  passed  on  to  the  principal. 

Do  you  not  see  that  under  our  plan 
of  operation  the  larger  and  more  influen- 
tial and  more  successful  we  become,  the 
better  it  is  for  each  of  the  principals  who 
through  the  giving  of  his  business  to  us 
contributes  to  our  development? 


18  THE  AYER  IDEA 

If  a  hundred  men  wished  to  invest  in 
an  apple  orchard  in  Oregon  they  would 
do  well  to  seek  a  competent  and  honest 
person  and  pool  their  interests  with  him, 
giving  him  great  powers  to  work  for  them. 
The  more  honest  and  experienced  he  is, 
the  more  power  he  should  have  and  the 
more  to  their  advantage  he  will  use  it. 

This  would  be  a  much  cheaper  and 
generally  more  satisfactory  method  than 
for  all  of  the  hundred  men  to  journey  to 
far  away  Oregon  and  there  employ  their 
own  judgment  in  the  consummation  of  a 
business  deal  for  which  they  have  no 
peculiar  fitness  or  training. 

We  are  sure  that  the  idea  is  sound  and 
in  this  agency  its  application  is  sincere. 
It  does  not  appeal  to  the  type  of  man 
who  is  suspicious  nor  to  one  who  is  desirous 
of  getting  something  for  nothing.  And 
that  sort  of  business  man  appeals  to  us  just 
as  little  as  our  methods  appeal  to  him. 

The  development  of  this  thought, 
however,  has  brought  us  the  cleanest, 
strongest  and  most  loyal  clientele  in  the 
world — has  enabled  us  to  give  a  nation- 


IN  ADVERTISING  ig 

wide  service,  has  received  the  endorsement 
of  the  really  v^^orth -while  publishers  and 
has  made  our  business  characterful  and 
strong  with  the  strength  of  rightness. 


THE  UNIVERSALITY 
OF  ADVERTISING 

NY  commodity  or  service  for 
which  there  is  a  demand,  or 
for  which  there  may  be  cre- 
ated a  demand, is  advertisable. 
The  range  of  industry  now 
profiting  through  pubHcity  is  exceedingly 
wide,  and  commercial  America  is  just  be- 
ginning to  realize  the  possibilities  of  the 
printed  page  as  an  aid  in  its  affairs.  Schools 
agricultural  implements  -  pickles  -  gelatine 
pens  -  pencils  -  perfume  -suspenders-clothing 
shoes -tobacco -cotton  gins- coal- pa  per 
portable  houses-insurance-curtains-skates 
canaries  -  telephone  and  telegraph  service 
candies-fish-blankets- towels-scrapple 
pumps-parrots -church  bells -soft  drinks 
motors-stoves-overalls-mattresses-cheese 
voting  machines -aeroplanes-furnaces-oil 
water-adding  ma  chines- paints- engines 
boats-roofing-mail  boxes- guns-sheeting 
and  pillow  cases-pianos- gloves -almanacs 


IN  ADVERTISING  21 

bees  -honey  -  fertilizers  -  books  -  railroads 
steamships  -  waffle  irons  -  bonds  -  lye  -  coffee 
cocoa-  chocolate  -  automobiles  -  butter  -  ties 
bread-  underwear  -  hosiery  -  chafing  dishes 
watches -baseballs -silks -hooks  and  eyes 
dress  fabrics  -  linings  -  rings  -  salt  -  crackers 
hammocks  -  tools  -  laces  -  flour  -  cigars  -  rugs 
milk  -  hats  -  collars  -  shirts  -  scales  -  fruit  jars 
lamps-  typewriters  -  silverware  -  soups  -  teas 
ice  cream  freezers  -  baskets- trees  -  root 
beer  -coffee -spices -so  da  fountains -soaps 
pajamas  -  chewing  gum  -  molasses  -  cows 
stationery-furniture  -  breakfast  foods  -  seeds 
flowers — all  these  things  and  many,  many 
more  are  being  exploited  by  us  through 
advertising,  and  successfully,  too — in 
yearly  campaigns  ranging  in  amount  from 
fifty  to  a  million  dollars. 

It  is  difficult  for  one  not  associated 
with  the  advertising  business  to  correctly 
measure  the  influence  of  advertising  upon 
the  very  existence  of  the  average  man. 

What  a  nation  eats  and  wears — its 
pleasures,  comforts  and  home  conditions 
— these  questions  are  being  settled  by  the 
modern  economic  force  called  Advertising. 


22  THE  AYER  IDEA 

A  man  is  captive  to  his  prejudices. 
You  have  a  prejudice  in  favor  of  your 
brother — there  are  milUons  of  men  just 
as  good  as  he,  but  in  your  mind  he  is 
superior. 

You  have  a  prejudice  for  a  piece  of 
music,  for  a  religious  doctrine,  for  a  polit- 
ical belief;  there  are  many  men  who  most 
admire  another  melody,  or  hold  another 
religious  faith,  or  are  devotees  of  another 
political  party. 

These  prejudices  are  put  into  our 
minds  through  a  system  of  education. 

We  are  born  into  a  family  and  grow 
up  surrounded  by  its  members  and  through 
the  years  are  educated  to  have  a  prejudice 
for  our  own  kin. 

We  hear  an  opera  and  something  in  its 
melodious  expression  finds  something  kin- 
dred in  our  souls,  and  we  become  prejudiced 
in  favor  of  that  particular  musical  motif. 

Through  training,  through  reading, 
through  conversation  and  association  with 
our  fellows  we  become  believers  in  a  cer- 
tain religious  creed  and  adherents  of  a 
particular  political  doctrine. 


IN  ADVERTISING  23 

Of  nothing  may  you  be  surer  than 
that  prejudice  may  be  put  into  the  human 
mind  through  the  intelligent  use  of  print- 
ers' ink. 

People  acquire  a  favorable  prejudice 
for  that  which  they  read  about,  hear 
about,  know  about;  and  if  these  things 
about  which  they  are  told  measure  up  to 
their  expectations  they  become  lodged 
with  their  other  prejudices  and  have  an 
advantage  over  articles  of  a  similar  nature 
for  which  no  such  favorable  prejudice 
exists.  (^There  is  no  quicker  and  more 
certain  method  of  promoting  the  sale  of 
anything  than  by  advertising  it  along  cor- 
rect lines.  ^1 

Someone  has  said  that  if  bread  and 
butter  were  new  inventions  they  would 
have  to  be  advertised  before  people  would 
accept  them  as  standard  articles  of  food. 

{  Marvelous  as  are  the  possibilities  of 
advertising,  it  is  a  fact  not  to  be  disputed 
that  probably  half  of  the  tremendous  sum 
yearly  invested  in  advertising  is  practically 
wasted  because  the  effort  is   made  along 


24  THE  AYER  IDEA 

lines  which  for  various  reasons  cannot 
possibly  prove  effective^ 

We  have  tried  to  develop  an  organi- 
zation to  minimize  the  possibilities  of  fail- 
ure. We  state, with  the  utmost  frankness 
that  we  have  learned  from  the  mistakes 
which  we  have  made. 

We  believe  that  there  is  no  other 
advertising  house  so  closely  in  touch  with 
industrial,  commercial,  and  publishing 
conditions  in  every  part  of  the  country  as 
is  ours. 

We  make  eight  or  ten  thousand  busi- 
ness calls  per  year,  and  during  the  last 
twelve  months  representatives  of  our 
house  have  visited  almost  every  state  in 
the  Union. 

Mark  you  these  men  are  our  represent- 
atives— they  are  not  solicitors.  Not  one 
of  them  draws  a  commision  for  getting  an 
account.  Not  one  of  them  ever  suffered 
a  decrease  in  salary  because  he  lost  an  ac- 
count. They  are  engaged  to  carry  on  the 
good  fight  to  win  converts  to  the  Ayer 
Idea,  but  are  under  instructions  that  before 
a  man's  business  we  want  his  respect  and 


IN  ADVERTISING  25 

confidence,  and  that  if  we  cannot  have 
these,  his  business  is  not  desired. 

We  have  here  a  great,  throbbing, 
highly  systematized  and  intelligently 
organized  business  for  seeking,  classifying 
and  applying  selling  sense. 

The  business  which  will  not  be  bet- 
tered by  this  contact  is  not  wanted.  The 
business  man  who  refuses  to  see  the 
advantage  of  an  alliance  with  Advertising 
Headquarters  would  never  be  happy  here 
and  never  make  us  happy  while  here. 

We  call  to  mind  a  fountain  pen  man- 
ufacturer who  said  to  one  of  our  repre- 
sentatives: '*If  business  men  generally 
knew  what  the  Ayer  organization  could 
do  for  them  you  would  simply  have  to 
select  your  clients.'' 

We  appreciate  the  compliment,  but 
would  like  to  make  plain  the  difficulty 
that  a  house  such  as  ours  meets  in  its 
effort  to  explain  to  business  men  its  system 
of  service. 

The  American  business  man  is  over- 
solicited  by  advertising  men  and  over- 
solicitation  always  brings  over-promising. 


26  THE  AYER  IDEA 

Let  it  become  known  that  a  concern  con- 
templates an  advertising  campaign  and 
immediately  a  swarm  of  the  ablest,  most 
highly  trained  solicitors  that  the  business 
world  has  ever  seen  calls  to  explain  what 
their  various  houses  can  accomplish. 

.  This  prospective  advertiser  has  heard 
of  great  advertising  successes  and  through 
the  solicitation  which  he  now  receives  he 
gets  a  badly  exaggerated  point  of  view  as 
to  what  advertising  might  do  for  him 
and  his  business. 

Unless  he  possesses  an  extremely  level 
head  he  is  apt  to  award  the  business  on 
the  basis  of  what  has  been  promised. 
This  is  most  unfortunate  and  one  of  the 
chief  contributing  causes  to  the  waste  of 
advertising  investment. 

(  Advertising  cannot  make  a  success  of 
a  poorly  managed  business,  and  most  bus- 
inesses which  have  succeeded  through 
advertising  had  within  them  the  capacity 
to  succeed  without  advertising.  Adverti- 
sing shortens  the  time  and  emphasizes 
the  success.  \ 


IN  ADVERTISING  27 

There  are  advertising  experts  galore 
who  can  fairly  hypnotize  a  business  man 
with  their  fascinating  fables  of  success — 
there  are  business  writers  of  the  highest 
literary  skill  whose  facile  pens  weave 
wordy  wisdom  with  little  or  no  effort — 
but  (advertising  really  consists  of  more 
than  ardent  solicitation  or  beautiful  phrase 
making^ 

Business  men  are  asked  every  day  to 
invest  great  sums  in  the  promotion  of 
some  plan,  the  father  of  which  has  not 
made  a  success  of  his  own  business  and 
who  is  not  entitled  to  the  business  respect 
and  business  endorsement  of  the  men 
whose  money  he  solicits. 

Would  you  trust  a  broker  who  was 
notoriously  incompetent  to  manage  his 
own  affairs  to  advise  you  with  reference 
to  your  investment? 

Would  you  in  any  other  division  of 
your  business  turn  over  a  thousand  or  a 
hundred  thousand  dollars  to  some  man 
with  as  poor  a  record  for  personal  integ- 
rity and  business  success  as  is  possessed  by 
many  of  those  who  daily  succeed  in  secur- 


28  THE  AYER  IDEA 

ing    the    handling    of    large    advertising 
appropriations? 

The  Universality  of  Advertising  is  ad- 
mitted— the  all  embracing  possibilities  of 
publicity  in  the  promotion  of  merchandise 
cannot  be  gainsaid — the  wonderful  power 
of  constructive  advertising  is  but  begin- 
ning to  be  understood — but  the  greatest 
disadvantage  under  which  advertising 
labors  today  is  that  business  men,  shrewd, 
cautious  and  conservative  in  other  lines, 
seem  to  forget  the  value  of  these  same 
qualities  when  entering  upon  the  expen- 
sive and  powerful  activity  called  '*Adver- 
tising/' 


SCIENTIFIC  SELLING 

HE  commercial  world  is  alive 
to  the  possibilities  of  scien- 
tific manufacturing.  Great 
strides  are  being  made  in  the 
application  of  a  set  of 
principles  so  sincere  and  simple  that  their 
value  is  not  open  to  doubt.  Scientific 
management  is  opening  the  way  for 
greater  efficiency  and  greater  economy  in 
production.  i 

The  production  of  an  article,  how- 
ever, is  but  one  of  the  processes  through 
which  it  must  go,  and  the  giant  task  is 
today  and  always  has  been  to  find  the  best 
method  of  distributing  what  is  produced. 
>  Distribution  frequently  costs  more 
than  production.  Dollars  will  go  further 
in  their  purchasing  power  and  standards 
of  living  will  be  generally  enhanced  in 
just  the  proportion  that  distribution  is 
simplified  and  economized.^ 

(Students  of  economic    conditions  are 


30  THE  AYER  DDEA 

convinced  that  the  American  system  of 
selling  has  been  extremely  wasteful  and 
manufacturers  in  many  lines  are  now  ear- 
nestly considering  not  only  what  they 
may  do  to  organize  their  production  on 
the  most  scientific  basis,  but  also  how 
they  may  lessen  the  cost  of  selling  and 
thereby  make  a  greater  profit,  or  give  the 
consumer  the  advantage  of  a  better  article 
for  the  same  money  or  the  same  article 
for  less  money .3 

(  Intelligent  advertising  is  a  powerful  aid 
in  the  solution  of  this  vexatious  problem  J 

^It  requires  effort  to  sell  goods  and 
salesmen  must  be  paid  for  making  this 
effort.  A  merchant  buys  goods  to  sell 
them.  He  is  interested  in  profit  and  re- 
tailing has  long  since  reached  the  point 
where  quick  sales  with  small  profits  are 
more  highly  regarded  than  slow  sales 
with  large  profits.  \ 

(The  merchant  realizes  that  well  adver- 
tised goods  are  partially  sold  and  that  his 
trade,  although  the  profit  per  sale  may  be 
slightly  less,  is  certain  to  be  more  brisk 
on  goods  of  this  character .\ 


IN  ADVERTISING  31 

The  salesman  who  can  offer  to  his 
trade  a  line  of  merchandise  which  is 
widely  known  and  for  which  there  exists 
a  favorable  prejudice  can  sell  his  wares 
with  less  effort  than  if  he  were  handling 
an  unknown  article. 

The  manufacturer  who  is  paying  sales- 
men for  making  a  sales  effort  obviously 
has  to  pay  less  price  for  less  effort.  And 
this  condition  does  not  work  against  the 
salesman.  He  can  cover  more  territory, 
get  a  better  hearing  and  in  the  long  run 
make  more  money. 

The  scientific  ideal  endorses  a  straight 
line  as  the  shortest  distance  between  two 
points. 

If  a  railroad  is  to  be  constructed  from 
one  city  to  another  the  engineering  ideal 
is  an  air  line;  but,  of  course,  grades  must 
be  leveled,  streams  crossed,  other  towns 
taken  into  consideration,  and  a  practical 
building  of  the  road  means  a  departure 
from  the  ideal. 

In  merchandising  we  have  a  parallel 
case — the  man  who  makes  something  and 
the  man  who  wants  something.     The  sell- 


32  THE  AYER  IDEA 

ing  ideal  is  a  straight  route  from  one  of 
these  men  to  the  other.  But  there  are 
jobbers,  retailers,  competitors  and  market 
conditions  to  be  considered  and  in  practi- 
cal selling  all  these  elements  must  be  given 
due  attention. 

Advertising,  however,  provides  a  short 
route  by  which  the  man  who  makes  some- 
thing may  tell  about  it  to  the  man  who 
wants  such  an  article,  and  if  enough  persons 
are  told  and  taught,  they  will  make  their 
desires  felt  through  the  retailer  and  the 
jobber.  The  manufacturer  then  gets  his 
reward  because  he  has  his  mark  on  his 
goods  and  he  alone  can  supply  them. 

His  salesmen  find  it  less  difficult  to 
sell  the  goods  and  through  this  process, 
wisely  conceived  and  courageously  con- 
ducted, many  a  business  is  bringing  about 
a  much  more  wholesome  condition  in  its 
selling. 

Business  men  are  learning  that  it  is 
better  and  cheaper  and  economically  more 
sound  to  get  the  bulk  of  trade  in  a  given 
line  by  identifying  their  merchandise  and 
creating  for  it  a  wide  demand. 


IN  ADVERTISING  33 

It  is  not  illegal  or  illegitimate  to  raise  a 
business  beyond  the  pale  of  competition  by 
such  methods  and  approach  to  a  monopoly 
can  frequently  be  built  along  these  lines. 

If  the  man  at  the  head  of  such  a 
business  sees  with  a  clear  vision  and  does 
not  unwisely  take  too  great  advantage  of 
the  position  thus  secured,  the  people  at 
large  will  be  the  direct  beneficiaries  of  his 
activities,  big  businesses  will  be  spared  from 
pernicious  molestation  and  all  of  the 
advantages  of  great  production  and  scien- 
tific distribution  may  be  realized. 

It  appears  reasonable  to  us  that  the 
largest,  oldest  and  most  highly  organized 
advertising  house  in  the  world  is  probably 
in  a  superior  position  to  furnish  counsel 
and  assistance  to  business  men  who  are  con- 
fronted with  such  problems.  It  is  a  note- 
worthy fact  that  we  have  been  conspicu- 
ously successful  in  developing,  frequently 
from  small  beginnings,  some  very  large 
advertising  accounts  with  manufacturers  of 
staple  commodities  and  corporations  offer- 
ing for  sale  services  of  a  public  or  semi- 
public  nature. 


MAKING  A  START 

lE  have  no  desire  to  disturb 
friendly  relations  between 
any  advertiser  and  his  agent. 
Our  advice  to  an  advertiser 
is  that  he  first  select  an  agent, 
then  give  the  agent  his  confidence,  discuss 
with  him  all  of  the  intimate  problems  of 
the  business,  and  take  the  agent's  advice. 
If  he  is  proceeding  along  such  lines  and  his 
advertising  is  successful,  he  should  reject 
the  solicitation  of  other  agents  and  make 
it  plain  to  them  that  he  is  satisfied  with 
his  present  connection. 

We  are  particularly  interested  in  the 
beginner  in  advertising.  Our  services  are 
naturally  of  peculiar  advantage  to  him 
because  our  wide  experience  has  taught  us 
many  things  which  mean  the  saving  of 
time  and  money  if  he  will  follow  our 
advice. 

It  may  truly  be  said  that  the  success 
we  have  accomplished  for  our  clients  has 


IN  ADVERTISING  35 

come  quite  frequently  through  our  ability 
to  discover  in  a  business  something  not 
apparent  to  the  ownership — something 
which  is  really  very  much  bigger  and  more 
important  than  what  is  commonly  called 
"advertising/' 

The  important  point  at  this  stage  of 
the  transaction  is  not  merely  to  find  how 
advertising  may  be  done,  but  to  find  if 
conditions  in  the  business  to  be  advertised 
are  in  harmony  with  an  advertising  pro- 
gram. 

There  must  be  a  sales  policy  and  it 
must  bear  proper  relationship  to  the  gen- 
eral business.  It  is  of  equal  necessity  that 
advertising,  to  be  successful,  shall  be  in- 
augurated and  carried  forward  with  the 
right  regard  for  these  conditions. 

At  the  start  we  regard  such  matters  as 
copy,  media  and  rates  as  entirely  subordinate 
to  some  of  the  fundamental  principles 
which  must  be  discovered  and  observed. 

New  advertisers,  and  many  advertising 
agents,  are  apt  to  place  too  much  impor- 
tance on  the  questions  whether  this  picture 
or  that  picture  shall  be  used,  whether  this 


36  THE  AYER  IDEA 

publication  or  that  publication  shall  be 
employed,  whether  a  certain  kind  of  copy 
or  another  kind  shall  be  run. 

These  are  all  matters  of  very  great 
importance  as  is  the  question  of  how  much 
space  shall  be  used  and  other  questions  of 
a  similar  nature,  but  all  of  them  may  most 
properly  be  taken  up  after  an  advertising 
policy  and  a  definite  advertising  determina- 
tion have  been  created.  They  should  then 
express  this  policy  and  determination. 

Our  primary  desire  is  to  bring  about 
such  a  relation  between  our  house  and  the 
advertiser  that  we  shall  be  in  a  position  to 
point  out  advertising  difficulties  and  not 
suffer  because  of  our  candor.  We  do  not, 
therefore,  seek  to  compete  with  others  in 
an  attempt  to  alluringly  delineate  the  pos- 
sibilities of  advertising,  preparing  adverti- 
sing material  to  be  passed  upon  by  the 
advertiser,  who  quite  likely  because  of 
inexperience  is  not  yet  in  a  position  to 
decide  such  matters. 

We  wish  to  be  so  related  to  you  that 
you  will  not  hide  from  us  the  real  facts — 
the  weakness  as  well   as   the  strength  of 


IN  ADVERTISING  37 

your  business — that  we,  in  turn,  may  have 
a  fair  opportunity  to  tell  you  truthfully 
what  your  business  condition  requires.  We 
cannot  do  this  if  we  are  under  the  neces- 
sity of  presenting  a  plan  more  pleasing  to 
you  than  that  which  has  been  presented 
by  others. 

Advertising  is  the  most  fascinating  of 
businesses.  It  is  intangible  and  indefinite. 
There  have  been  so  many  advertising  suc- 
cesses that  any  man  can  prove  anything 
about  any  method. 

There  is  so  much  half-knowledge  float- 
ing about  that  few  men  are  in  a  position 
to  decide  which  advertising  success  is  a 
success  because  of  the  advertising,  and 
which  a  success  in  spite  of  the  advertising. 
Business  men  starting  in  this  untried  field 
need  honest,  reliable  advice. 

Do  not  reason  that  because  your  appro- 
priation is  small  you  will  give  it  to  some 
friend  or  acquaintance,  and  after  you  have 
become  a  bigger  advertiser  you  will  seek 
a  bigger  agency  if  you  then  feel  the  need 
of  such  services. 

By  very  virtue  of  the  fact  that  your 


38  THE  AYER  IDEA 

appropriation  is  small,  it  should  be  plain 
to  you  that  you  need  at  the  beginning  the 
best  advertising  assistance. 

If  your  appropriation  were  large 
enough,  you  might  pull  out  with  poor 
assistance;  but  at  the  start,  when  so  many 
problems  are  to  be  solved,  and  it  is  so 
highly  important  that  mistakes  be  avoided, 
you  especially  need  the  guidance  and 
counsel  of  advertising  men  of  proven  in- 
tegrity and  ability. 

Do  not  be  led  astray  by  the  braggarts 
of  the  business  who  from  time  to  time 
announce  some  new  way  of  assuring  adverti- 
sing success. 

Today  these  concerns  are  telling  of 
one  particular  method.  Last  year  they 
were  telling  of  another.  The  year  before 
they  had  an  entirely  different  panacea. 

Learn  how  many  of  the  accounts  they 
secured  by  their  marvelous  patent  process 
of  success  three  years  ago  are  with  them 
today. 

Not  long  since  we  advised  a  new  adver- 
tiser with  reference  to  his  first  expenditure. 
He  replied  that  he  had  no  reason  to  believe 


IN  ADVERTISING  39 

that  our  advice  was  not  good,  but  that  he 
had  observed  that  it  had  been  given  with- 
out what  he  considered  a  proper  amount 
of  investigation  on  our  part. 

This  man,  by  taking  such  an  attitude, 
placed  a  premium  on  ignorance. 

We  presume  if  he  were  to  be  operated 
upon  for  appendicitis  he  would  not  engage 
a  surgeon  who  by  his  past  experience  was 
competent  to  handle  the  case  without  any 
further  reading  or  study,  but  that  he 
would  employ  a  doctor  who  would  have 
to  undergo  an  elaborate  series  of  investiga- 
tions in  order  to  equip  himself  with  the 
skill  and  experience  necessary  to  perform 
such  an  operation. 

While  this  advertiser  indulged  his  pen- 
chant for  investigation,  one  of  his  leading 
competitors  undertook  a  publicity  cam- 
paign quite  along  the  lines  that  we  had 
advised  and  gained  all  of  the  profit  that 
comes  from  being  a  pioneer. 

No  advertising  agent  has  any  right  to 
advise  the  expenditure  of  another  man's 
money  without  basing  that  advice  upon 
information  and  experience.      But  a  house 


40  THE  AYER  IDEA 

such  as  ours  has  gathered  knowledge  from 
a  good  many  advertising  experiences  and 
has  through  its  wide-flung  organization 
almost  immediate  access  to  facts  and  sta- 
tistics of  dependable  character. 

It  is  an  incident  in  our  business  to 
make  all  kinds  of  investigations  with  refer- 
ence to  consumer,  retailer,  jobber  and 
competitive  manufacturers.  It  is  very 
rarely  that  an  advertiser  even  knows  of  such 
work. 

Our  whole  theory  is  to  seek  clients  on 
the  basis  of  our  record  of  success,  and  then 
extend  to  the  clients  thus  obtained  the 
broadest  and  most  modern  advertising  and 
selling  service  available;  rather  than  to  seek 
advertising  orders  and  try  to  get  them  by 
a  cheap  and  tawdry  display  of  special  in- 
formation or  mis-information  cooked  up 
to  satisfy  the  advertiser. 

Please  bear  in  mind  that  a  gold-brick 
always  looks  good.  It  has  to.  Its  super- 
ficial appearance  is  its  sole  virtue.  We 
are  perfectly  willing  to  admit  that  we  are 
out-promised  every  day;  but  we  try  to 
make  performance  square  with  promise. 


tions, 
follies. 


THE  DAWN  OF  A 
BETTER  DAY 

E  have  traveled  forty-three 
years  along  the  advertising 
road  and  in  that  time  we 
have  seen  the  rise  and  fall 
of  many  advertising  institu- 
advertising  ideas  and  advertising 
We  have  tried  the  best  we  knew 
to  contribute  semewhat  to  advertising 
development,  and  it  is  a  matter  of  personal 
pleasure  to  us  to  note  the  growth  of  other 
advertising  agencies  which  are  working 
along  the  lines  that  we  have  preached  and 
tried  to  practice. 

It  is  a  significant  fact  that  advertising 
is  proving  anew  the  old  adage  that  "the 
right  will  prevail/'  and  there  never  was  a 
time  in  all  the  history  of  the  business  when 
it  was  so  apparent  that  a  better  and  larger 
success  comes  to  the  concern  which  works 
with  uplifting  and  upbuilding  methods. 
It  is  no  discredit  to  the  great  profes- 


42  THE  AYER  IDEA 

sion  of  medicine  that  many  men  unfitted 
for  its  practice  appear  and  for  a  brief  while 
flourish,  and  indeed,  that  some  charlatans 
wax  wealthy  and  seem  to  find  permanent 
success. 

It  is  no  reflection  on  banking  that  get- 
rich-quick  financial  schemes  are  from  time 
to  time  inaugurated  and  that  some  men 
transiently  succeed  in  these  unholy  en- 
deavors. 

It  argues  nothing  against  the  legal  pro- 
fession, the  ministry  or  any  other  worthy 
line  of  endeavor  that  from  time  to  time 
these  callings  are  besmirched  by  the  activi- 
ties of  a  few  unworthy  men  who  are  more 
or  less  successful. 

Advertising  during  all  of  its  days  has 
been  a  peculiar  sufferer  from  many  of  its 
practitioners.  In  its  beginnings  it  was 
unworthily  used  in  the  promotion  of  almost 
every  sort  of  fraud,  and  people  came  to 
look  askance  upon  anything  that  was  adver- 
tised; but  in  these  latter  days  it  has  acquired 
a  new  dignity  and  new  strength,  and  the 
better  publishers  and  cleaner  agencies  are 
all    concentrating    their    efforts    in    the 


IN  ADVERTISING  43 

direction  that  means  more  power  and  more 
credit  to  advertising. 

We  have  a  belief  that  American  busi- 
ness is  facing  a  better  day,  that  the  national 
conscience  has  been  quickened,  that  sin- 
cerity and  honesty  pay  bigger  dividends 
today  than  ever  before,  and  their  rew^ard 
tomorrow  will  be  even  greater. 

(We  have  a  conviction,  born  of  wide 
observation,  that  an  increasingly  large 
number  of  business  men  are  in  the  future 
going  to  tie  to  something  sane  and  sub- 
stantial in  advertising.^ 

We  have  a  feeling  that  the  advertising 
organization  which  gave  the  best  expres- 
sion of  itself  and  received  its  highest  en- 
dorsement from  publishers  and  advertisers 
in  its  forty-third  year,  will  not  go  wrong 
in  its  forty-fourth,  or  forty-fifth,  or  fiftieth 
year. 

(^We  have  a  theory  that  the  more  busi- 
ngs men  there  are  who  know  about  the 
Ayer  Idea  in  Advertising,  the  more  busi- 
//ness.  men  there  will  be  who  will  use  the 
^Ay^Method  of  Advertising. 

We  close  this  volume  with  an  open 


44 


THE  AYER  IDEA 


invitation  to  any  business  man  who  has 
been  interested  in  its  reading  and  who  is 
not  satisfied  with  his  advertising,  or  who 
has  not  yet  tried  advertising  as  an  aid  to  his 
business,  to  advise  us,  that  we  may  call 
upon  him  and  discuss  the  subject  more  in 
detail. 


